Jazzpunk Review

Thankfully Jazzpunk is – for the most part – very funny, as it bloody well should be considering that that's practically its only goal in this storied little world. The game keeps a strong focus on parodies throughout, and they're generally handled well in the sense that they're either fairly universally known or general enough to not require familiarity with the source material. Mostly, though, Jazzpunk's humour stems from its sheer tadpole-gargling absurdity, which is at least a nice break from the asinine pursuit of realism, but it's relentless to the point of edging on meaninglessness. Occasionally I'd catch myself even adjusting to Jazzpunk's bizarre world, losing interest in its jarring non-sequiturs as they seemed more and more logical, before finally catching myself and being hit with the full force of the maddening reality of trying to degauss pigeons, or apply lipstick to my face-visor, or harvest organs from a Hunter S. Thompson lookalike. The impact of the comedy was still there, enough to elicit a snort of laughter from the gummed-up workings of my throat, but it could have been so much more with just a gentle sprinkling of magic dust from the juxtaposition fairy.

Some of the levels phone it in a bit too, and to a game like Jazzpunk 'some' means a worryingly large chunk of the game. Only three take the form of amusing non-linear playgrounds to gleefully run around in nudging everything in sight, while the rest are much more stumpy affairs about leading you down a narrow corridor with the occasional aside or detour stirred into the mix. Not that linearity is a problem in itself, but the game just doesn't do anything with its new-found change of pace. I could understand if a linear level was used to unload a set of related, sequenced gags into my joyous upturned face, or used for the purposes of storytelling, but Jazzpunk does nothing of the sort and carries on with exactly the same formula. I wouldn't say it ruins the levels, but it leaves me once again with a faint sense of being let down.

Another facet of Jazzpunk that it shares with old point-and-click adventures (cast your mind back, please) is that it appears to be going through something of an identity crisis as to whether it's a game or not. “No, really,” it says, handing me a mysterious device that appears to fire a set of Intellivision sprites. “Look, you can shoot things. Shooting, like in a shooter! Is that not enough? Here, have a fetch quest too! How about some minigames? Action sequences in adventure games always go down well, right? Sierra wouldn't have done them to death if they didn't.”

You could make the argument that these features are in Jazzpunk largely to parody existing videogame tropes, and I'd be the first to agree with you there. However, I'd also be the first to point out that they also make for some really rather dreadful gameplay, and that ironically dreadful gameplay is still just as abhorrent as whatever it's referencing as long as the player has to experience it first-hand. Jazzpunk's minigames all take the form of clever parodies of retro games – well, depending on your definition of 'retro' some of them might hit uncomfortably close to the present – and their controls are, almost without fail, about as tight and responsive as a cruise liner full of bowling balls. There's a bit near the end where the primary antagonist challenges you to a number of such minigames, and for this very reason I'm still not sure whether they're scripted to force you to lose or not. You could also make the argument that – apart from that particular example – the minigames aren't obligatory whatsoever and you're well within your rights to just leave them in disgust. That's true as well, but Jazzpunk is a game built entirely around doing things you aren't obliged to. I could studiously ignore everything in my path and just sprint straight to my objective, but I wouldn't have much fun, would I?

Really though, we're well into nit-picking territory by this stage, and I'm about ready to wrap things up. Let's be nice and clear here: Jazzpunk isn't a good game. The few aspects of it that resemble gameplay mechanics are awkward at best, but being a game isn't Jazzpunk's purpose in life. Some might be put off by its extreme brevity, and that's fine. Jazzpunk isn't a time killer either. It knows exactly what it is: it's three hours of absurd irreverent interactive comedy, and I wouldn't have it any other way.